Underwater propeller blade straightening in New Orleans with Hydrex new generation equipment

23/08/2013

Last month, a diver/technician team performed a successful propeller blade straightening operation on a 245-meter oil tanker at anchorage in New Orleans, U.S.A.

By taking advantage of the in-house developed cold straightening technique, damaged blades can be straightened underwater. This allows a ship with a damaged propeller to return to commercial operations without the need to drydock. Optimum efficiency of the propellers can be restored by bringing the blades back to their original form.

With one of the blades of its propeller severely bent, an oil tanker needed a fast, on-site solution to restore the propeller’s balance and efficiency. Hydrex diver/technicians are trained to carry out repairs underwater in the shortest possible time frame. A team from the Hydrex office in Tampa Bay, Florida, was therefore rapidly mobilized to the ship’s location in New Orleans to restore the damaged blades to as close to their original condition as possible.

After the equipment arrived at the vessel’s location the team started the operation with a detailed survey of the affected propeller blades.

With the survey completed, the team positioned the straightening machine over the bend in the trailing edge of the damaged blade. In close communication with the team leader in the monitoring station on-shore, the divers returned the bent blade to its original state. When the straightening was complete, the Hydrex technicians polished the blade to make sure that any remaining loss of efficiency would be minimal.

Conclusion
Our R&D department is constantly looking into ways to enhance the available propeller repair techniques even further to improve our services. New models of the straightening machines have recently been put into service. These allow us to straighten blades that could previously only be cropped. This type of repair can be carried out on-site, allowing the ship to return to commercial operations without the need to drydock.